This weeks Sepia Saturday post is inspired by a photo of a shop with its exterior festooned with all sorts of produce. I don’t have any old pics of shops or markets, however I can share the following with you, from our Christmas trip to Istanbul in December 2005. We’re a bit “bah humbug” about Christmas so we took off to a non-Christian country for a change – and what a change it was! We saw the Blue Mosque under snow, visited the Topkapi Palace and had dessert in one of the famous Pudding Shops (that’s all they serve) and generally had a ball. One of my favourite places was the Grand Bazaar

You can buy virtually anything there – food, slippers, astrakhan hats, jewellery – you name it, they have it, and of course haggling is obligatory. It was in an old beautifully-tiled building, albeit a bit beaten-up, and rather loud and garish but I loved it.

Mr ImagesPast seems particularly delighted to pose in front of this fine display of plates, pots and vases :-)

I particularly liked the stained glass lanterns which seemed to occupy every restaurant we went into – I wish that I had brought a few of the small ones back with me. I don’t regret not buying one of these though…

Belly dancing outfits! You can also buy more run-of-the-mill items here, such as

Fruit and veg and

What on earth is this? I thought it was a laundry at first, and that they also happened to sell logs (you can see a row of “logs” under the “laundry”). Wrong – it’s the Tripe and Trotter stand. When the penny dropped, Mr IP couldn’t get away fast enough, but I had to stay for the photo opportunity. Bizarre indeed! :-)

Trot off to see what my Saturday Sepian friends have made of this week’s theme!

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Being rather pushed for time, I’ve recycled a post from January of last year. It features water and boats. Apologies for the blatant cheatery, but I don’t think my Saturday Sepian friends will have seen this one before as it was written for a Geneabloggers meme.

I hope you are all having a good weekend – it has snowed here and is icy, but the stove is going well, so I am cosy. Hopefully you are keeping warm too :-)

Visit my Sepia Saturday pals with your hot water bottle and check out what they came up with from the inspirational photo for this week. Remember to leave a comment if you are entertained/amused/appalled!

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Well, it’s Saturday night and time for a Sepia Saturday post before I miss the boat.

This week’s inspirational photo is of young boys with football boots. I thought that I had a photo of Army personnel playing footie in a field of tents, but on close inspection, I couldn’t see a football so decided to go with the general theme of youngsters. On checking Great Granny’s album, I was struck by this photo

This is Granny – the one you all know from her previous antics. She would have been about 32 but seems to appear much older due to the way she is dressed. Check out the ankle socks and brogues :-). Auntie has found a piece of fascinating beach treasure and is desperate to show it off. There’s another little hand trying to grab Granny’s attention.

Granny is holding what I think may be a camera, but what on earth is Dad up to in the background? Tsk.

Jo

Get your football boots on and head over to Sepia Saturday and see who has scored goals this week.

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The inspiration this week at Sepia Saturday is a photo of a wall-mounted clock in what appears to be some kind of workshop. I couldn’t find a photo of a clock, but I thought of “workshop” and “work” and remembered these 3 photos from my granddad, Douglas’s, collection. It seems to be a Works Outing, probably from somewhere near Dunfermline, Fife – I’m not sure where he worked at the time. Here we are getting off the Magical Mystery Tour bus – I wonder if there was rowdy singing on the way?

and here are some of the Lads on the ferry – I wonder where we are going? At least no one is hanging over the side. Yet. Billy Bunter’s off to forage for buns, but someone else forgot to bring his teeth…

We’ve reached the next stage of our journey, but Bert is too much of a weakling to allow us to continue so I hope East Arms is a pub. However, there is extra good news

there are THREE (yes, dear reader, three) clocks in this photo :-) That’s Douglas in the Commodore in the middle, trying to control his homies.

I hope they all had a good time, and that everyone got home safely, but I’m curious about where they went. I can’t find a place called “East Arms” using Google, and we don’t have half-timbered buildings in Scotland, so I suspect they ventured further afield. Any ideas?

UPDATE! Thanks to Mike Brubaker and Michael Inkpen, I now know that the lads were far from home. It can’t have been a day trip as they were at East Arms, Hurley, Maidenhead in Berkshire, 435 miles away from home. Here’s how it looks a few decades on

It would take at least 7 1/2 hours to get there today – wonder how long it took them in their coaches before motorways?

FURTHER UPDATE!

Mike Inkpen emailed me to say “I’m pretty sure this is the place where the coaches are drawn up.

It’s Thames Side, Henley on Thames. Look at the building facing us and
the skyline. The river here is used for the Henley Royal Regatta and the
mooring mid-stream and the judges booth all add up.”

I think he’s right. So was it a Works Outing to the Henley Regatta, or did they just happen to pass through at the right time? It’s a long way to go, so I suspect they were on a bigger trip with a bigger purpose. It could also have been a Masonic Lodge trip, as Douglas was a Mason.

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE!

Thanks Mike – he has found the place that the Lads probably boarded the ferry, at Thameside. It looks quite similar to where they got off the buses

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You are invited to a Wedding reception at Sepia Saturday. The theme this week is based on an old photo of a bride and groom.

I tried to think back to my earliest memories of weddings and found this photo of me, aged 3 years and 9 months dressed up as a flower girl for my Uncle’s wedding. Cute huh? Don’t be fooled.

In order to look this cute, I had to spend all morning at the much-hated hairdresser getting the full works – hair cut, rollers in, back-combing and the stinking hair spray. Then back home to get dressed, then back in the car for an hour long journey to Dunfermline Abbey. My parents both had roles to play in the proceedings, and tempers were frayed. During the photo shoot, I was bored and fidgety and I remember Dad threatening me with some punishment and holding me still while we posed. I’d had enough of weddings by that stage, and I hadn’t even had a whiff of the promised cake. You know what’s coming now, don’t you? Yep – I got away from his grip and took off round the hotel grounds like a rat up a drainpipe.

Any further photos of me were “action shots” as I hurtled through the rose beds with the photographer and my Dad in hot pursuit. I don’t remember a public smacking. I do remember being under the table with my little brother during the meal. My Grandfather, Douglas, was trying to keep us quiet with “wedding cake”. It was like no cake I’d had before. It was awful – full of raisins and booze and covered in marzipan. We ate the icing and abandoned the rest.

I guess Mum had her hands full with two small children on a massive sugar high and no doubt there were tears before bedtime.

Yes, my uncle and his bride forgave me, but I still hate fruit cake :-)

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I can’t believe that it has been two years since I tentatively wrote my first blog post on Images Past. I dipped my toe into the blogging world just for fun, and I’m really enjoying it. I didn’t imagine that anyone would actually read it, but some very supportive followers gradually appeared and made comments. Have a look at me in 1966 when I was two, back in the days when you could let small children play with golf clubs and no one called Social Services.

My first post was a rather reserved one about my Dad’s love of vintage tractors and I showed some old postcards which he bought at tractor rallies in Canada and the US. The postcards will probably only be of interest to someone with similar enthusiasm for old agricultural equipment but Dad’s tractor collection almost caused a divorce.

Since my blogging confidence has grown, due to the support of my lovely followers (hello to both of you), I’m now quite happy to rattle on about all sorts of things. I’ve had great fun getting to know my Granny through Great Granny’s Album. Granny died when I was only 3, and although I remember her, I never “knew” her. It seems like she was quite a character, judging by some of her antics. I think my favourite post is probably about a photo of Granny up a tree with her cousins. It’s obviously hereditary as here’s a rather poor photo of me up a tree. Strangely enough I was wearing pink slippers.

Exploring the photo album has prompted me to do some interesting research , and I found out that in the 1920’s there was a factory that built “cars made in Scotland by ladies for ladies“. I had no idea! The little purple sports car at the end of the post has now moved on to a new owner :-( but it was fun while it lasted :-D You guessed it – this is me with That Car….

Looking at the blog stats, the most popular post was where I compared two identical old sewing boxes and their contents. One belonged to my great aunt, and the other belonged to Elsie, who was my non-tree-climbing Granny. Elsie’s sewing box was trashed in comparison – she wasn’t precious about her stuff and had a very Gung Ho attitude compared to her more dignified sister. My “Sentimental Sunday” story about visiting the grave of Greyfriars Bobby seems to attract a good few visits too. Bring a hanky. Just to be contrary here’s a pic of me with a cat.

Judging by the old sheepskin jacket, this was taken in the mid 1980’s. Good grief, the shadow behind my head makes me look like I’ve got a beehive!

I’ve found that having an intriguing title for a blog post makes it more popular but in retrospect, including the words “busty blonde granny of 6” probably led to a lot of disappointment for Googlers. Joining in with memes, such as Sepia Saturday is a great way to find inspiration and the contributors are a very supportive bunch :-)

Making “virtual” connections with people from all corners of the globe is exciting, and has also enhanced my social media experience through Facebook and Twitter. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who reads my blog, to those who leave me comments, to my new Facebook friends and Twitter tweeps – it’s great to know that you’re out there :-)

Now off you go to Sepia Saturday to see what some of my blogger chums are up to!

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Everyone knows how much I love trawling through old newspapers and earlier this week I received an email from Thomas, who runs a company that sells original newspaper gifts. How did he know? He offered to send me a couple of newspapers if I would write an article about them and/or link to his website.

Naturally, an unknown man offering to send me gifts in the post made me feel a little uncertain, but I decided to take him up on his offer – the lure of the old papers was just too much for me. He asked me what titles I would be interested in and I said “one of your oldest Scottish papers, please”. This morning, the postie delivered this

And inside, wrapped in tissue, were two newspapers

I gave them a quick inspection. There was a copy of the “North British Daily Mail” from Saturday 7th January 1882 and a copy of the “Glasgow News” from Monday March 9th 1885. Brilliant – old newspapers I can read without cranking a microfilm reader handle until my hand falls off :-)

The first thing I noticed was the size of these broadsheets. They’re 18″ wide and 24″ long. In 1882, there must have been a lot of elbowing on the train as the men with bowler hats went off to work, or maybe the train seats were bigger too.

They smelled a bit funny (kind of like old newspapers) and a closer look revealed that they were slightly yellowed – surely not… surely not? Then the penny dropped that they are the actual ORIGINAL prints, not the reproductions that I had expected. 130 year old newspapers that managed to avoid the fish and chip shop or being made into firelighters. Amazing. Needless to say, I have been reading a lot today.

Does your cat need stuffing or a relative need burying?

Are you in need of tricycle training, turkeys or tweeds?

I fancy getting myself a Ladies maid. That would make me a Lady, wouldn’t it?

I’m glad I took Thomas up on his offer as I’m going to have so much fun with these newspapers.

If you fancy having a look to see if Historic Newspapers have something which might interest you, I have been given a 15% off discount code to share with you, so if something catches your eye, enter the code 15TODAY. They have newspapers from all over the world, but the bulk of their archives are from the US and the UK.